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Trade, Diplomacy and War Along the Waters: the Mississippi During the American Revolution

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Trade, Diplomacy and War Along the Waters: the Mississippi During the American Revolution TRADE, DIPLOMACY AND WAR ALONG THE WATERS: THE MISSISSIPPI DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION A Thesis by Daniel A. Papsdorf BA, Kansas State University, 2001 Submitted to the Department of History and the faculty of the Graduate School of Wichita State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May 2010 @ Copyright 2010 by Daniel A. Papsdorf All Rights Reserved TRADE, DIPLOMACY AND WAR ALONG THE WATERS: THE MISSISSIPPI DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION The following faculty members have examined the final copy of this thesis for form and content, and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with a major in History. _________________________________ Robert M. Owens, Committee Chair _________________________________ Robin Henry, Committee Member _________________________________ David T. Hughes, Committee Member iii DEDICATION To my Kansas family—Mom you are our heart, Josh our brain, and Dad our courage. Guess that makes me either Dorothy or Toto. In acknowledgement of the chihuahua and miniature dachshund that kept my lap warm as I researched and wrote, I pick Toto. To Tania, my wife—Without your love and patience I could not have completed this journey. You taught me the value of hard work and persistence. You are my inspiration, my love, my entire life. iv Waterways were indeed the key. Through them, nature had decreed that the trans-Appalachian West would be more connected to New Orleans, and even to the Caribbean, than to Philadelphia, New York, or Boston. For it was not from any eastern port, but down the Mississippi, via New Orleans and through the Caribbean, that all commerce from the vast region must eventually pass. - François Furstenberg1 The lands along the Mississippi River have remained an amorphous area "dimly realizing westward" (in Robert Frost's phrase) and waiting to be occupied by Anglo-Americans and their Afro-American slaves. This West, in a word, has been only dimly realized by historians as a place with a history of its own and a people whose tale is worth telling in its own right. - Daniel H. Usner, Jr.2 But what if the frontier were stripped of its providential veneer and refocused through a wide- angle lens. Desacralized, the frontier is "only" the contact point of cultures. In the history of the Great West, the frontier was the ground—actual and metaphorical—where European and Indian worlds met and mixed. It was the intersection where peoples came together—to trade, to fight, to procreate, to preach contrary conceptions of the good life, to restore old worlds, and to make sense of new worlds. 3 - Stephen Aron 1 François Furstenberg, "The Significance of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier in Atlantic History," The American Historical Review (June, 2008): 660-661. 2 Daniel H. Usner, Jr., "The Frontier Exchange Economy of the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Eighteenth Century," The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Apr., 1987): 165. 3 Stephen Aron, "Lessons in Conquest: Towards a Greater Western History," The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 63, No. 2 (May, 1994), 143. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the faculty of the History Department at Wichita State University. Without their encouragement and guidance I could never have undertaken this task. Dr. Robin Henry, no matter how many questions I have had, your door was always open and your advice was always sage. Your reading lists always overwhelmed and your analytical skills intimidated. Thank you. A thank you also goes out to Dr. David Hughes for lending his expertise to this endeavor. Thanks are also due to the chairs, commentators, and fellow panelists at the 2009 Mid- America Conference on History and the 2010 NYU Atlantic History Conference who offered astute criticism and questions regarding several chapters of this study. Finally, words cannot do justice to the extraordinary lengths that Dr. Robert Owens has undergone on my behalf. You showed me that history could be ceaselessly interesting, emotional, and milk-shooting-out-of-your-nose hilarious. A thousand thanks for your guidance. Whenever I give my first lecture I will remember to bring a handkerchief and an enormous bottle of Gatorade, but I am fairly certain that no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to make a decent Seth Sothel joke. Thank you. vi ABSTRACT In early 1779 Father Pierre Gibault, a supporter of the American cause, found himself hiding on an island in the Mississippi River. Both ice and the lack of a formal alliance between Spain and the United States blocked his path to the Spanish west bank, while a British military expedition prevented him from returning to the east bank. As the French-Canadian priest struggled to keep warm he probably pondered the delicacy of his position: surrounded by enemies, unreliable allies, and a host of powerful Native groups he did not understand. In the years before, during, and after the American Revolution, the Mississippi River served as both a highway and a border between empires. Trade, diplomacy, and war all depended on the waters of the river. Other than the Appalachian Mountains, no other physical feature in North America figured as prominently as the Mississippi River. The waters tumbled settlers, soldiers, adventurers, and merchants together along the banks in a complex mixture of cultures. The geographically dictated blending of cultures, the limited number of European settlers residing on the banks of the Mississippi River, and the overwhelming military and political superiority of Native groups who made the region their home, created a unique European middle ground in the heart of the continent. Living under the hammer of a Native dominance that never fell, European and American settlers and soldiers in the region picked their steps carefully. Religious and political concerns paled in comparison to the practical matter of survival. Europeans and Americans on the banks of the river shared a unique political malleability born of vulnerability. This malleability made the western frontier of the American Revolution a peculiar landscape into which, mere handfuls of men were able to tip the balance of power toward the Spanish and American cause. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Historiographical Question 1 Focus of the Study 24 The River as Organizing Principal 25 Methodology 29 2. “THEY DESIRE LIBERTY IN EVERYTHING: AGRICULTURE AND TRADE ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI 32 Dreams of Excess and the Reality of Subsistence: Agriculture Within the Mississippi River Valley 32 Mining 44 Furs, Skins, and Liquor 46 Transportation 53 3. WAR AND MILITARY EXPEDITIONS 59 Early Years 63 From Alliance to Victory 66 The Mississippi River as Military Obstacle 88 Aftermath of the War 91 4. CULTURAL AND POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF THE MISSISSIPPI 94 Fragile and Neglected: the European Middle Ground of North America 94 Economic Obstacles and the Problem of Population 96 Native Dominance of the Mississippi River Valley 109 Slavery Along the Waters 116 Fickle Currents and a Fickle Populace 118 Conclusion 122 Bibliography 128 Appendix 138 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. The Revolutionary War in the West 23 2. Cantonment of His Majesty's Forces in N. America 57 3. The British Governments in North America 58 4. Browne's Cliffs 107 ix LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Population Estimates For Louisiana And West Florida 102 x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Historiographic Question Days after arriving in St. Louis as the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana in July of 1779, Fernando de Leyba wrote to Spanish Governor Bernardo de Gálvez asking for advice on a legal problem that was nearly six years old: Don Pedro Piernas, in a letter of April 24, 1773, informs the predecessor of Your Lordship, that he has in the prison of this village the principal chief of a band of that nation who was convicted of having committed some thefts and murders on the Arkansas river, and he had not determined to pass sentence. As he feared lest the revengeful nature of the Indians would lead them to commit other greater excesses. The Governor of Louisiana, Luis de Unzaga, disagreed with Piernas' decision and argued that only swift and decisive action could instill in the Indians a proper sense of respect for Spanish authority. At first glance, the situation Piernas found himself in appears as just one of many instances where European authorities sitting comfortably in capitals issued decrees that were impossible to enforce on the peripheries of empires. A closer examination of the account adds levels of complexity and context however, which call for both more questions and answers. Not only did Piernas fear Native reprisals for executing a murderer, he feared executing a prisoner who had been delivered to him by the Missouris and Great Osages themselves. A year earlier Piernas had boasted of capturing and placing in irons a chief of the Missouris and his accomplice who had been engaged in stealing horses from the inhabitants of Ste. Geneviève. Once again, Piernas was dependent on the help of Indians, this time the "Sotoux [Unknown tribe] and Putatami [Potawatomie] nations, which was pursuing them [the Missouri]," the previous day. In the face of the thefts of 1772 Governor Unzaga decreed that trade with the Little Osages and Missouris be halted, but this embargo resulted in another Native success, after an English trader 1 sneaked past the Spanish and provided them, "with all requisite arms and ammunition wherewith to defend themselves and continue their raids." In St. Louis, during the early 1770s, Piernas attempted to cow nearby tribes into submission through threats and by withholding trade goods, but accomplished little for all his efforts. In 1779, there was a new governor in New Orleans and a new lieutenant governor at St.
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